


Misunderstanding

by ficsandcatsandficsandcats



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23960032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficsandcatsandficsandcats/pseuds/ficsandcatsandficsandcats
Summary: Reader Request:  Reader and Jaskier have been together for a few months. They are in love but reader doesn’t think she’s good enough for Jaskier because she’s a little awkward and nothing like the countesses and nobles he’s been with. One night she catches him kissing another woman and it breaks her heart and she runs. However she doesn’t know that the woman had forced herself on him and he pushed her away. Jaskier runs after her, desperate to convince her of the truth.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Misunderstanding

After 30 days, you allowed yourself to believe that this was happening. You weren’t just a passing fancy for Jaskier, he meant it when he said he wanted to be with you alone.

After 31 days you exchanged ‘I love yous’. You worried it was too soon, he apologized for taking so long to say it, both of you were so giddy that Geralt finally dropped you off at a tavern and said to get it out of your system by the next morning. You hadn’t, but you still appreciated the time alone.

On the 97th day, Jaskier broke your heart.

It had started the same as any other day. You’d accompanied him to another tavern, another performance, another chance to watch him perform and beam at him proudly as he sang. These performances were always somewhat bittersweet for you. Your heart swelled with pride as he sang to you but it also pricked the nasty voice in your head that tried to argue that this couldn’t last. You knew the kind of women he’d been with before. Countesses and Baronesses and, if the rumors were true, at least one Queen. Why he would resign himself to an awkward girl from Tretogor with no particular talents beyond animal husbandry and some basic healing. You felt guilty for worrying, knowing that it hurt Jaskier to think he hadn’t been able to put your fears at rest yet, but you assured him that some things you had to work out for yourself. It didn’t stop him from trying, though, and you loved him for it.

You usually went up to the room to wait while he finished collecting his earnings from performances, using the time to write a quick letter to your family back home and let them you were still alive. You’d finished your letters and washed up and yet Jaskier hadn’t returned. Worried that he had somehow gotten into trouble (not uncommon but thankfully one of your other talents was wielding a mean right hook), you went in search of him. You’d only gotten so far as the end of the hall when you saw him and your heart shattered.

Jaskier was pressed up against the wall, a woman you didn’t know pinning him in place, his face partially obscured by hers as they kissed. You stood just there for just a beat, the longest second in your life, as Jaskier’s eyes opened and locked with yours. The next thing you knew, you were running, gone too quickly to see Jaskier shove the woman off of him. Barefoot and in only your shift you were bolting back through the other end of the hall, looking for a door that would get you out of here.

“Y/N!”

Your vision blurred with tears as you ran and you finally found a door that led to the back of the tavern, an alley near the stables. The door burst open moments behind you and a hand grabbed your arm.

“Y/N listen you have to give me a chance to –“

“I’ve given you a chance, Jaskier. I’ve given us three months of chances but here we are,” you say, your voice growing bitter and hardened.

“What do you mean? Y/N truly if you just let me explain-” Jaskier pleaded, trying to pull you into his arms as you pushed against him.

“You don’t get it, do you? You’ve done this a thousand times, falling in and out of love like it’s your job. Hell, it is your job! I can’t do that! **I can’t do this anymore** Jaskier, I can’t keep waiting for this to happen and pretending not to know that there will always be someone else, another, better chance at happiness out there for you. And do you know the thing that hurts the most?” you ask, your voice cracking. Jaskier shakes his head, in answer and disbelief and protest to everything that was happening. Tears filled his eyes and you hated that it hurt you all the worse, knowing that you were causing him pain.

“ **It hurts thinking this was real** ,” you say, and then turn and run, unimpeded into the night.

When Geralt finds you later you’re curled up around a sleeping Roach in the stables, her coat damp with your tears.

“Jaskier said you’d be out here,” he said. You glowered at the name and then, worse, began to cry again. Geralt longed for the days of resolving problems with swords. Then again, he expected he could at least temporarily make you feel better by running the bard through. He crouched down by you, moving cautiously like you were a skittish horse.

“Y/N, I understand why you didn’t believe him but will you believe me?” he asked.

“You’re just going to say what he told you,” you said.

“No, I’m going to say what he told me and the woman you found him with,” he replied, “She caught him unawares.”

You scoffed.

“I know when people are lying, Y/N, and he isn’t. She admitted she cornered him and assumed he would be welcoming to her advances but he wasn’t.”

You want to believe the witcher’s words but that voice, made bolder and louder since you saw them together, refused to let you take comfort in them.

“Besides, wouldn’t it be too convenient?” Geralt asked casually.

“I don’t find heartbreak very convenient,” you say, bristling at his words.

“Yes but, wouldn’t it be convenient if it was this simple and true? Doesn’t it fall just a bit too comfortably in line with all of the awful things you’ve feared?”

Something in what Geralt says rings true, you can tell because the voice gets angrier and louder and you’re smart enough to recognize that a hurt creature lashes out. Geralt can see you considering his words and he reaches out and pets Roach’s nose.

“So, what are you going to do?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“Well the way I see it you have two choices. You can talk to him and see if you can work through this. Or you can avoid him, I’ll see you safely on your way back to Tretogor and he becomes a short part of a long life. You don’t have to choose right now, but soon,” with that, Geralt rises and walks back towards the stable’s entrance.

“Geralt?”

He pauses and turns back to look at you.

“Thank you,” you say.

“Hmm,” he replies, and leaves you to your solitude.

You keep replaying the moment you stumbled on over and over and through time and after Geralt’s words you remember little cues you hadn’t before. The way Jaskier had been pushed up against the wall, his hands on her shoulders, not pulling her closer but positioned to push her away. The stillness of his face, not responsive as you know he always is in a kiss. He hadn’t looked guilty when he saw you standing there. Just frozen and heartbroken.

“Y/N?” you hear a voice whisper, so quietly you think you’ve gone mad and are hearing his voice now. A head pops by the side of the stable door and you see Jaskier glancing at you cautiously, fingers twitching nervously as he struggles between fighting instincts to dash away from your anger and run towards you to fight for your love.

“Jaskier,” you say. He must hear something hopeful or at least not entirely hateful in your tone because he creeps a little closer.

“It’s getting cold. Geralt told me to leave you in peace but it’s getting so cold and I just… didn’t want you out there in it. If you truly don’t want me here, that’s ok, but please go inside. I’ll sleep in the stable,” he says and you notice he’s brought a blanket with him.

“Oh Jaskier,” you sigh, “I do want you.”

“You do?” he asks, his face lightening with hope and relief.

“Yes, but that’s the problem,” you continue. His face falls but he still comes closer and sits next to you, waiting patiently for you to continue. “I want you more than anything but I’m scared I’ll never get used to this or get over these damn insecurities I have. I know it isn’t exactly attractive.”

“Y/N, not every part of you has to be attractive. Wait – stop – I heard it as soon as I said it, please let met explain,” he says, eyes widening and hands going up in surrender. You can’t help but smirk and you nod for him to go ahead.

“You know how you love me, every part of me, even the parts that you find frustrating or confusing?” he asks. You nod, thinking of the time he kept you up all night in his quest for a rhyme to “orange.”

“I’m not perfect but that doesn’t make you love me any less. So why, my love, do you feel you have to be perfect or that every part of you must exist in the pursuit of attractiveness to be worthy or receptive of my love?” he asks, brushing a hand over your face and wiping away a tear.

“Well when you put it that way,” you say, sniffling as more tears fall.

“I know I have a bit of a daunting reputation. But Y/N if you give me the chance I will spend the rest of our lives showing up, every day, proving my love to you, good days and bad. All I ask is you do the same for as long as my presence in your life brings you happiness,” Jaskier says.

And through hundreds and hundreds of days after, he does just that. 


End file.
